A Seattle-based 20-something obsessed with KNOTS LANDING slowly but surely explores all 344 episodes of the epic, dynamic nighttime soap from the '80s alongside his Beloved Grammy.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

A Reflection on Season One of KNOTS LANDING (1979-1980)

A Reflection on Season One of KNOTS LANDING (1979-1980)

Before we move on
to the sophomore season of KL, I’d
like to take a moment to reflect upon the experience that was the first season,
the season that introduced us to this magical and wonderful world that we
will get to inhabit for fourteen glorious years.Part of the purpose of this blog is to rewatch
and rediscover the show and see how things from my perspective either change or stay the same.Will I still feel the same way about the
series as a whole?Will my favorite
seasons and episodes remain the same as they were before?Will I still put seasons one through three
comfortably at the bottom of the
entire fourteen season run?Well, that’s
what we’re gonna find out, but by the time this entire epic 344 episode experience is finished, I would like to be able to quantify it in some way and
conclude with an official RANKING, deciding what the best season of KL is and what the worst is.

Obviously we’re a
ways off from that at the moment, as we’ve only watched one season out of
fourteen, and a short season, at that.The first thing I’ll say is that season one will remain the shortest
season in the entire run of KL with
only thirteen episodes (followed by season two with eighteen episodes and then
season fourteen with nineteen episodes).As we get deeper into the ‘80s, the seasons are gonna get as big as thirty episodes per season (seasons six,
seven, and eight), so let’s reflect on how small thirteen episodes is compared
to that whopping number of thirty.In a
way, it gives us less to talk about, since there are simply less hours of material
to go over, but it also helps to keep this season really fresh in my memory,
each episode as its own special snowflake.When we get to those humongous thirty-episode seasons, I kinda doubt
each and every episode will stand out the way every episode from season one
did.

I’ll start out by
saying that a rewatching of season one showed a tremendous improvement over my previous opinion of it.I just enjoyed the shit out of this season,
but I have to pause and ask myself if it’s because the quality was actually
better than I noticed before or if I’m simply revved up and ready for the KL journey and excited to see people I love again.Who knows?In any case, I still think I would understand why someone might watch
this first season and say, “Eh, that was only okay,” and not proceed with the
rest of the series.It’s not exciting in the same way that later seasons are
exciting, but I find the characters fascinating right from the very first time
we meet them.Aside from Kenny and
Ginger, I think this season one cast is pretty great and I do love all the
characters, even though I look forward to later characters we haven’t met yet,
such as Abby, Mack, Sumner, Jill Bennett, and Paige.

I definitely
predict that this will remain the most “singular” season, and what I mean by
that is, for the most part, episodes are singular, standalone.You could pretty much watch the season
(except for the two-parter finale Bottom of the Bottle) in any order you pleased and it wouldn’t really be screwing
up any noticeable continuity.Rather,
it’s more like, “This week, in Let Me Count the Ways, Karen contemplates an affair!Next week, in The Lie, Laura gets raped!The episode after that, Will the Circle be Unbroken?, Val’s eccentric mother comes to town!”I would definitely not call season one
serialized at all and I would not call it a soap, either.To my memory, the show really turns into a
soap in season four.

This is also the
only season (besides the final one, of course) that does not end on a
cliffhanger.Instead, it ends with a
certain sense of finality with Gary announcing that he is an alcoholic and
everyone clapping.In my essay on that
episode, I reflected that the writers and producers were probably covering
their bases in case the show didn’t get picked up, that it wouldn’t conclude on
some dangling cliffhanger.Because of
that, it makes me able to almost see this season as a little 13-episode
miniseries, the story of a man and his wife who move to a new place to give
their marriage a second chance.They
have some adventures, we shine the spotlight on their neighbors, then Gary’s
marriage is tested by his own weaknesses, but he manages to get up out of his
gutter, admit his problem, and we end with a feeling of hope for their
marriage.When viewed through this lens,
it actually does play fairly well and
I think that’s interesting to note.

Even so, I also
think it’s clear right off the bat, right from the opening moments of Pilot, that Karen is our character to
focus on.Nobody watching Pilotin 1979 could know that this
series would run for an astounding fourteen years and nobody could know that
Michele Lee would wind up being the only person to appear in every single
episode, but just watching the show get started, she commands the attention
right away, and, for me, is easily KL’s
“main” character if I must assign such a label.In a way I hate to write that because it seems dismissive of all the
other characters I love, but she really is.

Okay, last but not
least, let’s discuss the season’s highs and lows, shall we?By that, I mean I’ll simply pick the best
episode of the season and the worst.For
season one, I think that best episode honor has to go to episode three, Let Me Count the Ways.It’s
our first episode of the series to not feature a Dallas character popping in for an appearance, so its significant
as our first episode to completely immerse us in the world of KL, and it’s also a stunning and
Emmy-worthy showcase for Michele Lee as she subtly and powerfully and
beautifully displays all the different emotions of a woman facing midlife and
considering an affair.Awesome work from
Michele, and also an awesome little
musical score that introduces that lovely Karen theme we hear a few times this
season.Only after starting this blog
did I learn that season one got nominated for an Emmy for its music, and I
can’t argue that, cuz I love this
little piano piece that plays intermittently through the first season; it’s
absolutely beautiful.

Is anyone
surprised that I’m gonna call Land of the Free the worst episode of the season?Well, it definitely is and it’s a complete misfire from start to finish
but, as I mentioned in my write-up, it’s not without some camp value and
moments that are good for a chuckle.I’ll put it to you this way; I’d rather watch KL’s worst episode than Dallas’
worst episode (which I can’t even think of right now, as those last few seasons
of Dallas are just a solid blur of
badness).Also, while the episode is a
failure, you also get it out of the way early in the run of the series rather
than having to face it way down the line like you often would with other
long-running shows.

So that’s my
reflection on season one.Right now I
have no other season to compare it to, but the ranking will begin after we move
through season two.Will season two show
an improvement over the debut year?Stay
tuned because we’re gonna find out very soon!

1 comment:

Knowing what the show morphed into later, it's fun to see glimmers of it peeking through in Season One, which overall is just so drastically inconsistent. Too many bad actors, some dud episodes, and a few characters that go on to become far more fascinating (Richard and Laura) but within the confines of these episodes, don't seem very promising. There is no show that had a more fascinating course-correction than Knots Landing. I can't wait to read more from you. I love your writing.

About Me

I live in Seattle, Washington and am a recent college graduate who is currently stuck in a retail hole, but working to get out of it. My interests lie in reading, writing, editing, and proofreading. I love movies and television and I obviously have a very special love for KNOTS LANDING, because I have created an entire blog devoted to it. Feel free to comment on my blog or leave me an E-Mail anytime you want and I promise to get back to you.